8,500 Connections | A milestone born in 1967

So I now have 8,500 connections on LinkedIn, WOW, who would have "thunk" it. ME a small town boy drafted into a big city some years ago, diving into the computing industry. But my goal here was to meet as many people as I could and actually talk and say something to each and every one of them daily, interact with them and make really great business relationships. I congratulate and acknowledge all anniversaries, job promotions, birthdays, you name it, I want to make sure I touch all my connections and that they know I saw their accomplishments, its a big deal. Why are we on here, if not for networking and recognition. It all takes me back to my days as a 13-year-old and the following flashback:

A lot of you know me and my expertise with computer systems spans years, but what you DONT know is that my father taught me all of this at age 13, while being TOTALLY BLIND all his life...now Im going to let that sink in for a bit...

My dad, Roger Baccus, encouraged my siblings and I to learn all this computer stuff when we were small children, he was a visionary, I'd be 13 and he'd be like, "they are going to have PC's in every home" (this was 1980) and Im like "whatever dad" (PC's were as big as the living room back then, lol) then he said, "you know what they aren't going to have", I'm like "what dad" (at this point I wanna go ride my bike with my friends), he's like, "PEOPLE TO FIX THEM!! Learn this skill and you'll never have to worry about a job" ...35 years later, I'm still in this industry.

My dad met Steve Wozniak in college during the 70's when C programming was but a figment of folks imagination, he was programming in #Pascal, #Basic, #Assembler, #Fortran and some others. He is the reason why I now know how to code apps, build sites, become a social media influencer because HE INFLUENCED ME!!

I love my life and the experiences of pre-internet, pre-social media as we learned the back-ends of everything, from simple programming of web servers, network domain setups to cloud services (colo's lol) to how to break into a database and fix transaction logs issues, to basic installation and configuration of servers of all types, I felt that I had an advantage because I can look at something two or three ways to remedy the issue vs, I need to call someone to fix it.

But what I really love is the fact that my dad, whose knowledge, wisdom and foresight are invaluable, had a VISION without being able to physically SEE and has never seen any of his children, knows us by our works in our communities, our families, and our daily lives. So this was one of the reasons I have given back so much as well. I had a great teacher. I love you Dad!!